Not How It Starts But The How It Goes On Remix
by hungrytiger11
Summary: Where does an idea come from? Seven acts that shaped Hinata's life and brought her to where she is, opposite Sakura, the sixth Hokage, in a political stalemate she needs to end. A remix of Chaff in the Wind. Background Hinata/Neji, Hyuuga-centric


Where does an idea come from? Seven acts that shaped Hinata's life and brought her to where she is, opposite Sakura, the sixth Hokage, in a political stalemate she needs to end. A remix of Chaff in the Wind.

Notes:

Standard disclaimers apply. I am not the creator of the characters or story; they belong to others. This was written for entertainment, not for profit.

Written for 2011's Remix/Redux: Dressed To the Nines Challenge; this story is a remix of Chaff in the Wind by wei.

* * *

><p><em>In the End<em>

* * *

><p>The timing is inconvenient.<p>

She doesn't have time to put her son down for his nap in his own room. He must make do with the window seat in her office. On the other hand, it doesn't hurt that she has a chance to smooth her son's forehead in front of the Hokage, show off those seals, a gesture to remind her of what Hyuuga can do. A cost to everything, Hinata reminds herself, and turns to the business of pretending to kowtow.

A critical eye shows Sakura is looking tired, and thinner perhaps than she used to. Hinata couldn't say for sure; it has been a long time since Naruto's former teammate crossed the Hyuuga threshold. Being Hokage is busy work, of course, and there is not much free time, she freely acknowledges that, but she is also far from stupid. The woman is here for something, and catching up on old friendships its not.

"About the Kaiten," Sakura starts in without even a standard greeting. "It occurred to me that it spins not because Neji-san- or you, or any Hyuuga- can't expel chakra in a uniform sphere standing still. Its because the angular momentum prevents an external torque from pushing them aside."

More than the blunt manner, or the hurried entrance, or even the desperation in her Hokage's voice, it is the content of what she says that surprises. Hinata forgets, sometimes, that Sakura's real training has never been in politicking; she knows the body better. Despite this, she can't shake the feeling that it is the former and not the latter Sakura is discussing today. For the first time since the woman entered the room, Hinata speaks, "It's easier for a top to spin than balance immobile on a narrow edge."

"Peace is like that," Sakura says, and sighs. "Can I just tell you what I want?"

Hinata's mouth tightens into a grim line and she seats herself at her desk, deliberately refusing to glance at Hiro sleeping on the window seat beside her. She is glad, in a distant way, that Sakura has dropped the metaphors and glib words. This way her words will match her. Sakura is a rough woman, it must be acknowledged, hard in all the places that count, and some too, Hinata thinks, that don't. She is not a woman who understands bonds, or obligations, or familial love very well. Not her fault, to be fair. From a civilian family, she has been unable to tell them a thing about her day since she was twelve years old. Her teammates are scattered or dead. Tsunade has left her behind. Hinata had friends, family and teachers all, and she had been dumb about such things once. Not anymore.

It is her job to support her clan. So she says nothing, and perhaps the silence is enough because Sakura starts to fill it. She talks of health care, medic training, academic reform, kunoichi support. Hinata writes them down dutifully, but just for show. She knows all this already, has read every legislation Sakura has proposed since her promotion. All of it mostly aims to help civilians-turned-ninja like Sakura herself. Sakura is protecting a clan too, just one she hasn't quite recognized for what it is. None of it helps the Hyuuga more than a war's end will hurt it. How perverse, but that's the way it stands. They are a city of shinobi. They fight because that is what they are raised to do. If not against others, than against themselves and in a war at least you know who the enemy is.

By speech's end, Sakura's face is flushed with some emotion. "I think these are all great things. I think everyone can agree to them. I think the reason you aren't is you're mad about the peace treaty. It's _peace_. I don't get why you don't want it. I don't get why _none _of the clans seem to want it. But if you agree to some of this other legislation, I'll let it go. We can shelve the treaty with Kumo until you agree to it."

Hinata feels as if the top of her head has been lifted entirely off her neck, she's so light. It is an incredibly light feeling, getting what you want. When she finally dares to look up from the papers on her desk, it is only to risk a glance at her son's face. She sees her husband's nose, her father's cheekbones, her grandfather's strong jaw. All three men knew since they were born that they would die on the battlefields with their clan. If she could, she would release her son into peace, rewrite a fate that even Neji will admit exists. But peace is a myth in the house of your enemy. And myths are irrelevant to the enormity of what is offered here. The only question is-

"Why?"

Sakura mouths the questions back to her, turns it over in her brain, or maybe she just wishes she could ask Hinata that herself.

"Because our village needs this," Sakura says finally, and it is not accusation in her voice. Well, only a little. "And because perhaps, after that, our village will be strong enough to survive the peace."

You can change yourself. You can even change another person, if you never give up, and then another, then another, then another, till you have changed a clan, and, quite possibly, a city.

"Yes," Hinata says, and perhaps it is not one, but both women who wonder how it came to this, that their two small selves would be forced to choose not to end a war. That they would choose to seal their own fates.

* * *

><p><em>Earlier<em>

* * *

><p>The day Hinata hears about the peace treaty is the day she realizes they will always be fighting a war. Against their own. They will always be fighting a war <em>against their<em> _own._ To the people who sit in the Hokage Tower, maybe their enemies have only been strangers who's hitai-ate markings different from the Leaf's. Maybe the years and bodies and blood they have asked of her and her own are nothing. Maybe they can all be friends. She leans back on the hospital bed, and holds her husband's hand and thinks of her uncle, how he is not here for this moment. He will never see his grandson. He will never see Neji hold his own child, never see the way Neji's fingers thread themselves fondly through her hair and never hear Neji say what an amazing thing, there's this new person here.

Hyuuga Hizashi is a name on a stone now. He saved this city a war, and most of her class had never heard of him till….well, she was not there when they were told at the Chunnin exams, for obvious reasons, but the less said of that the better. The point is, a man died and no one cared. No, that's not right. A _Hyuuga _died and no one cared.

"He has your eyes," Neji tells her when he steps back into the room. The bundle in his arms is so small she might almost not realize he held a person at all. Her heart tightens till she can't breath when she thinks, _but he is. He is holding our son._

"H-he does not. He has Hyuuga eyes. They are all the same," she says just to hear him contradict her, to hear him say something so wonderful again. To her disappointment, he doesn't gainsay her, not directly, anyway.

"To some, it might be that way," he says, and when he runs a finger over the child's cheek, his hands seem impossibly huge, and the care he gives impossibly gentle. She reaches out her own hands, wanting to hold him again already. A baby: such an impossible joy. "But I think he has your eyes. He looks at the world so clearly, even so young."

Such a surprising thing for Neji to say; he has never been prone to sentimentality, not even where she was concerned. A true compliment then. She blushes and has it in her to hate herself just a little for her inability to outgrow such childhood faults. But then the child is in her arms, and she's not thinking about anything at all for a minute.

"Are you too tired? The nurses said you might be."

Her son's small hands crinkle around his ears, as if he's surprised to find these two flapping things attached to his head. So strange, he looks at her as if to say, so strange, don't you think? She grins at him, brushes his nose with her finger. "Too tired for what?"

Neji's hand reaches down to take her own, lifting it and her attention from the baby in her arms.

"There's news. Do you want to hear it?"

And then exhaustion does hit. She has been in labor for hours. So strange, she wants to say back to her child, so strange that I'm only tired now. The very thought pulls at the muscles of her face, but she really _is_ exhausted now. No energy for a smile.

Neji sits beside her, pushes back his hair. His forehead is free of the hitai-ate, and his double seal gleams darkly there. Her fingernail traces the patterns for both seals across her child's head- across _Hiro's_ head, she thinks. If Neji notices, he doesn't say.

"The Raikage's brother has come to the village." Her finger stills, then quickens. The tickling pressure must be too much because the child starts fussing in her arms, and Neji reaches for him just in time to hand him off to the nurse who comes running at the cry.

"But I wanted to-"

His hand curves around her forearm and he pushes her down. Gently, but still a push.

"Hinata, it's the peace treaty."

Its _always _the peace treaty, anymore. Kumo has had shinobi in the Leaf for months now. One of them has Byakugan eyes that he wields inexpertly. What does it matter that one more shinobi has come? Even a demon host?

"What do they want now?"

The treaty's been hard going. Kumo's pushing for a lot of things. Land. Information. Money. Its exploitive, and she can't imagine what's even got the people gathered around the table for these talks except- well, when she thinks of Naruto, and what he'd say, she can.

Neji sits, shrugs. "I think its more the intimidation factor."

Hinata nods. With Naruto dead, the Leaf is lacking a demon-host. They may have hated Naruto for most of his life, but he was insurance. He was theirs.

"What happens?"

"What happens when?"

"What happens when there's peace?"

The question sounds ridiculous out loud. They live. They stop fighting. Do they stop dying? Both their fathers' ghosts seem to hang in the room.

"They will not return the eyes. Or the children they say they haven't stolen. Or the land they've gained. We will pay repartitions over the course of ten years."

She wishes with no more fierceness, but with perhaps more selfishness than ever before, that her father was here. She wants to leave this to him. She wants to enjoy her baby.

"Where does the money come from?" she asks, rubbing the bridge of her nose. The people pay taxes to the Fire Country, of course, but not to the Hokage. Money is needed elsewhere; funding has been a yearly issue as the costs of war rise.

"Salary cut backs."

Two thirds of Konoha's entire shinobi army is a clansman of one sort or another. This would beggar some.

"What else?"

Neji leans back in the chair beside her bed, closes his eyes, looks a hundred years old. Her baby is still crying in the other room, but if Neji looks a hundred years old, that other room looks a hundred miles away. She pulls his hand up beside her onto the bed.

He starts in halting words. "There is- concern, I suppose, already with some. Our cousin Ko-nissan certainly thinks its possible. His father as well. And something Shino-san said-" Neji stops himself, focuses, continues. "Some people complain that clans have too much control. An oligarchy."

"I have heard this argument before," she acknowledges in undertones. Her husband's lips twitch up and then back down, but he doesn't open his eyes.

"Tenten used to get riled up abou- well, maybe its true."

Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't, whatever dead genin teammates thought aside. The shinobi force was two-thirds clansmen. They couldn't change who their families were, only if they were brave enough, strong enough to fight. Until more civilians joined the academy and stuck it out, that was just who they had for an army. But it is all just playing with statistics to Hinata at the moment. A real unease is beginning to grow in her, and she wishes he would just say what is being whispered all over town in rooms that are not this room.

"Go on."

"The Uchihas were killed in peace time," he says and the leap of logic is easy enough to make.

"Uchiha Itachi killed his clan on orders from the Hokage Tower. Isn't that what Uchiha Sasuke said?"

"Who pays attention to what anyone is saying in the middle of fighting?" Which is as much of a confirmation as she'll get. Anyway, whether it was sanctioned or not, one wonders. How could such a mass amount of murders go unnoticed for so long? Surely it must have taken hours for their heir to kill them all? More fundamentally, how could such discontent not be noticed? Or was it simply that, once peace had come and the Sharnigan became a toy instead of a tool, that they didn't care enough? Could the Byakugan survive being a novelty like that?

"Anata," she examines the lines of his knuckles, plays with his wedding ring. "I am tired. I need sleep. They still say we can go home tomorrow though, right? I know you are tired too, but if you could arrange for some meetings then, we have much to see to."

Neji doesn't answer, doesn't move from his chair, but he nods and grips at her fingers.

"Clansmen?" he asks.

She hums her agreement and adds, "And another meeting too, with some others."

"Who should I send messages to?"

"Kiba-kun will know what his sister is thinking, and Shino-san."

"Shino -san makes half the decisions for his clan anymore," Neji agrees. "Kurenai-sensei?"

Hinata shakes her head.

"She has little contact with the Sarutobi Clan beyond getting Asuma-sensei's monthly stipend monies. Who are the influential clans now?"

"Naras have lost a lot of land, and deer. They aren't powerful, but they might be angry."

Which is not really the question she asked. Her husband, she realizes, has already formed his own opinions on the matter, and once again the specter of Hyuuga Hizashi is looming large in the room. Well, no matter. Its not like it wouldn't hurt to see what the Nara clan was thinking, and if they came to any meeting that would mean the Yamanakas and Akimichis would come too. She releases his hand and leans back onto the pillows.

"What would I do without you?" she asks to send him off. He says nothing, but stops, looks at her one more time when he reaches the door. Her eyes are almost shut, but the pause is enough and so she asks, "I almost forgot. Is there any other news?"

"Hanabi's taken up with a new boy, a Sarutobi. She wants you to meet him."

"A Sarutobi? I probably already have at some clan function or another." It's a half-drowsed thought as exhaustion pulls her toward sleep.

"Probably," her husband agrees. "Nothing else much. There's some education legislation introduced. Haruno-san's work, I think."

"Nothing much, then."

"Just our son."

"Yes."

"Get some sleep. I will return."

Today should be a happy day. Well, she shall sleep and when she wakes her son will be there and her husband too and then it will be again. _Her son_, she thinks, and there may even be a smile her face. Who knew? She does have energy for that, after all.

* * *

><p><em>Earlier<em>

* * *

><p>Team Eight has had a weekly get-together for years, but it is only lately Hanabi has taken to calling them the "bitch and moan" meets. It had seemed funny, if crude, when she'd said it at the dinner table three weeks ago. <em>Going to another bitch and moan meet, Nee-sama?<em> Neji had nearly choked on his food. Hilarious, really, but looking at Shino's dark eyes, just barely visible over his glasses, it wasn't so funny now.

"They didn't even listen."

A bland statement; Shino doesn't waste his time on cussing, or spewing words. He's always exactly correct and only says what's true, but if there was a time for cussing, this would be it. _They didn't even listen._

"Well, you gotta admit- oh, excuse me, Miss, just my dog, but he's well behaved," Kiba breaks off placating Shino to placate the restaurant staff. Some quick flirting, a flash of that irresistibly boyish grin- the one that gets Kiba into as much trouble as it ever gets him out of- and the waitress agrees to seat the dog alongside them. Akamaru's tail brushes the tablecloths of the seating on both sides of the aisle, but collapses down cheerfully enough once they reach their destination. Taking a chair, Kiba continues, "You gotta admit, there's no facts. I believe ya, and Hinata-san believes ya, but-"

Hinata reaches out, brushes Shino's sleeve with her fingertips.

"We will find those girls. I promise."

He jerks his hand away to shove his glasses further up his nose.

"You will promise no such thing, Hinata-san. You know as well as I do genin teams lost on the front, in middle of missions which are now presumed to be _failed_ missions- these are not teams that come back."

Kiba leans over the table, "There's no-"

But he stops himself, pushing back into his seat, sliding down. That there's no bodies is really no comfort here. It might mean they were alive, it might not. Kumo left dead bodies exposed to the elements- even their own. It was part their burial rights. but a body might lie undiscovered, or it might be that these little genin- these little girls just barely out of the academy- are held hostage, in labs perhaps. Who knew where? The latter is certainly what the Aburame Clan thinks. Their techniques as a clan are- Hinata cannot put it any other way- _repulsive_. She's seen insects crawl over Shino's eyes, burrow under his skin, even. But they are also effective. They're also not a bloodlimit, a fact that at first glance should have made Aburame safer in the field than, say, a Hyuuga who's eyes might be gored out for transplantation. Shino's father, the clan head who still intimidates Hinata some days, thinks differently. The Aburame techniques were from rituals they put their children through, not something that could be so immediately transmitted to another as an eye or an arm. An adult wouldn't survive such an initiation, but if they were patient, they could work out exactly what the Aburame had done to children for a thousand years. They could do it themselves and in this way steal one of Konoha's most valued secrets.

Today, at the village's monthly clan council meeting, where clans' leaders met with the Hokage and personnel from the Tower administration to pass laws and discuss strategy, the Aburame Clan Head had laid forth his theories before the masses. Been soundly rejected for them too. He is, even as they sit here, likely visiting the home of two genin girls- twins and the first children in the clan since Shino. He must tell the family their girls were as good as dead.

So there really wasn't much to be said that hadn't been said at the meeting.

A waiter finally shows only to drop the menus on the table clumsily, as if startled by the palpably bad atmosphere surrounding the group. Akamaru growls and automatically all three shoot out a hand to lay into his fur. A stammer of apologizes and the young man disappears. They stare at the menus for a moment before going to pick them up, and only after that does Kiba venture to change the subject.

"What'd ya think of Tsunade's announcement?"

Shikamaru had warned them beforehand, of course, that such an announcement was likely; his father has been in on the decision- making process. But still, it is worrying, especially to hear on the tail end of a meeting such as this.

"Haruno, as Hokage? Who will need enemies?" Shino spits out. Hinata resists twisting her fingers; with her wedding ring there it rubs her skin. She tucks stray hair behind her ear instead.

"No, surely she'll be able- I mean, Tsunade's been training her since was a genin. She's been around the tower for, what? Over ten years now..."

"Alright, I know what I want," Kiba says, throwing the menu back down. "And you're wrong, you know. Well, not _wrong_-wrong. She's been there awhile, that's for sure. But Sis says- and Mom agrees- it's wrong she's not from any clan."

Shino doesn't say anything, but he flips the pages of his menu with a bit more force than he normally would. Hinata bites her lip.

"Oh, but, not all the hokage have been clan-born, you know..." she trails off. She wants to believe in Sakura, if for no other reason than she'd known Naruto, than that Sakura had saved her life once before the war, than that she could remember Sakura's shining face and gap-toothed smile from the class photos of their first year of school. But the truth is only two hokage have not been from clans and neither of them had lasted very long. Killed within less than a year of taking office, Namikaze Minato, of course, is revered as a hero, and so no one was ever so impolite as to say it, - but he'd lacked the _patience _to really listen to others. He'd been too sure of his own views of right and wrong. That's what her father'd said on the rare occasion such things had been brought up. Danzou was even worse. Hokage for only three months, he'd not only been party to a host of sickening experiments and the creation of his own private army, but he'd landed them in this war in the first place.

Once the village had been entirely clans-Uchiha, Senjuu and the allies they had asked to join them. Sakura could read history out of textbooks. She could see the Hokage monument staring down at the buildings below. But unless you were born to it, how could you see the needs, the sacrifices, the alliances, the enemies and the _strength _of what it is to be a clan?

Worrying, but, a choice had been made. And one other thing-

"Sakura-san, she didn't say anything against your father when he went up to speak. Or about any of the other clans who've seen family dead, but no bodies returned. She might be more willing to hear."

Of course, Sakura had also never sent a word of condolence about any of the Hyuuga losses and some had been as troubling as these. Hinata chose not to add that.

"She may have not said anything about it," Kiba points out, gesturing wildly, "but she had a whole_ lot_ to _say_. There's an agenda and a half that comes with that lady and I'm telling you-"

"Hinata-san," Shino cuts in. This time she can't see his eyes, nor his face, which is now hidden behind his collar. What he means by what he says next, she does not know. "You are wiser than any of us could have guessed to have done what you did, to protect your clan so."

And then, without a word more, he gets up and leaves.

"Should we-"

"Get up and go after him? I dunno. Maybe. But talking isn't helping him now, and I already had to argue about the dog and then we scared the help and I want to be able to come back here again. Leaving without ordering might not be too good. Let him go. He'll figure it out his own way."

Hinata gives one last glance back, activating her bloodlimit to better see how Shino's form is hunched and angry as he stalks down the street.

"And what did he mean by..." she doesn't continue, but long acquaintance has made it unnecessary.

"Oh, that? Don't you think he was referring to- you know?" Kiba reaches up a finger to his forehead, makes a few, quick, loopy gestures and brings his hand back down. Hinata touches her own brow and feel the raised, burnt skin of the seals there.

"Ah."

"Enough of this though! We got make it through a meal and then I got to walk you home. That's too long for such depressing stuff!"

Hinata smiles. "I'm a grown woman now, you know, Kiba. You don't have to walk me home."

"Yeah, I do or your husband will go ape-shit on me."

She snorts despite herself- really it's not a dignified sound at all. She covers her teeth with a hand as her whole face breaks out into a smile. Kiba grins back at her, his mission obviously accomplished.

"Neji's not that bad."

"Yeah," Kiba says, straight-faced. "He is."

Kiba's never exactly gotten along with Neji. Neji claims it's because Kiba's still halfway in love with her, but it's such an uncomfortable thought, she always rejects it out of hand. Her own theory is that the pack-oriented Inuzuka finds both Neji and himself too _alpha_ to be entirely at ease with each other. But no, that couldn't be right either. Because she has always found Neji perfectly willing to give way and follow_ her_.

"Do you really think Shino will be alright?" she asks one last time.

"No," Kiba replies. "He won't be, but he'll make do and come up with something, just like you did, Oh great Hyuuga Clan Head."

There is mockery in his gaze, but truth in his words, and so they sit in companionable silence till the food comes.

* * *

><p><em>Earlier<em>

* * *

><p>It is not proper light out when Hinata wakes and for a moment she can't place what woke her. She hasn't slept well for three days. No one at the Hyuuga Compound has. The fact that it is only four in the morning is groan-inducing, but then Neji's shadow falls over her and she knows what woke her.<p>

It still seems strange, to look at a person and think _husband_. But then, many things are strange in her life, nowadays. The thrill that manages to worm its way through her heart even now, strange and fluttering and new, is only one small thing in this world that is so far apart from where Hinata always thought she'd be.

"I didn't mean to wake you," The voice is muffled and Hinata realizes it is from the mask. She has never seen Neji's ANBU mask before, but then, he has not been in ANBU long, even less time than Hinata has been a wife. Tsunade has less than four months left in office, provided the council can find a successor, and she's been pushing paperwork for promotions at an alarming rate. Hyuugas, with their invaluable eyes, have seen an increase in promotions by a hundred and fifty percent.

She stands, taking the sheets with her, and pulls the mask off his face.

The hair snags, of course. She blushes. _Of course_. And then its clumsy hands and stammered apologizes as she picks at the knots tangling up the mask, and Neji curses.

"Shit. Let go." And his hands force hers away, bringing up a kunai to cut the damn thing loose. It is only after the mask is removed that they notice the sheet has been removed too. His smile isn't much of a smile, Hinata decides. More of a smirk.

The kiss he gives her is full of longing, but he doesn't take it further than that. She is glad because she has news she does and does not want to put off. But still, it is not her mouth that speaks next.

"I've missed you," he says. She helps him out of his clothes, and somehow they end up back on the bed.

"Report," she says because that is what a clan head should say, and she does listen as he briefly outlines gutting a known Kumo scientist and inventorying what was left in his lab. She isn't listening hard though. In this early morning light that is not yet true light, Hinata can stare at his chest and his scars. No new ones, but she still runs feather light touches across the burns that Kumo lightening techniques have made, then where a kunai nicked him, then to the older scar left behind from his first failed mission. She doesn't quite know why the wound on his shoulder is always where her eyes seem to settle on. It was the burns that were still wrapped in gauze on her wedding night four weeks ago.

Perhaps she returns to that mission because that was where so much had changed. Kurenai had told her team that their first Chunnin exam was not one she expected them to pass, but she did expect them to grow. And so much growing up had happened in those weeks that followed. Most, for her, in the hospital, first when she was recovering from the injuries her cousin had made, and later from visiting that same cousin. She'd discovered baking that summer, wanting something to give Neji on each visit, wanting an excuse to visit at all. Some strange bravery, to sit there by a boy who had nearly killed her, and now she sits by him again. Funny, how these things work out.

Neji had told her, when she visited him in the hospital those many years ago, he hadn't regretted the mission to retrieve the Uchiha. He had seen a kid with no family and though at the time he had hated them- hated _her_- so much, he had still felt sorry for the kid. You could never get back someone you lost.

True enough, she supposes, and waits for him to ask how her week went. If he doesn't ask, maybe she won't have to say.

It is a theory she doesn't get to test out.

"How have things been going here?"

He pushes her back onto the pillows, lies down beside her. In blankets they are cocooned against the cold. Her toes brush against his shins and, if she left them there, they would surely warm up too.

"Ninako-chan is missing."

"Ninako?"

"Your second cousin. Once removed," Hinata supplies. Neji frowns.

"That doesn't help. What do you mean, missing?"

She runs her hand across his face, and through his hair, but the wrinkles from frowning remain. "She's only a little thing. Three, maybe. I had not had a ceremony with her yet."

His hands are cold when they reach up to pull hers away from him for the second time that night. He holds her hands in his, and lays them between their two bodies.

"You mean to say, she's not been sealed yet? And she's missing?"

"No. Not missing really. Gone."

"Like you-"

"We can't really say for sure. No one saw anybody. No signs of a struggle. Maybe, it was only that she'd gotten lost. You know, down by the Nanako."

Neji pulls her close and she buries her face in his neck, against his scar. He still smells of sweat. If she put out her tongue, he'd taste like it too.

"You don't believe that, do you?"

"No, but there is talk of- there might be someone coming. From, y-you know, the Hidden Cloud. 'Please do not be so hasty in your conclusions, Hinata-sama. This is a delicate time.'" she parrots back those last words she has

heard so much in the past three days.

He doesn't say a thing for a long time. Long enough that Hinata thinks perhaps he doesn't mean to say anything at all. But of course, he asks.

"What is being done?"

He might hate her solution, such as it is. She doesn't love it herself, but the idea is there and the need is dear. This is how disaster is born, she thinks, but leaves it there. Disaster was never born. It has always been here among them. She pulls back just enough to watch his face as she says these words.

"I want to place seals on everyone. Even Hanabi. Even me."

His jaw tenses, clenches just the smallest bit, but otherwise no reaction. She is, after all, his clan head. She can do these things to any Hyuuga, even herself.

"The seal has flaws, I know. I would never want to hurt people with them, the way your father-"

His nails dig in, warning her not to go there and, playing the part of obliging wife, she obeys. "But I have something…different. What might work. Not a seal but a- _double_ seal, I suppose."

"Where did you-"

"It doesn't matter. It's an idea I have. But I've waited because I want you to do it."

His jaw relaxes, just a bit. She can't read much else on his face, but he says, "Hinata, I'm already sealed."

"Yes, but not double sealed. And anyway, what I want is not your sealing- not right now. I want you to place both this first and second seal on me. We need to see if it works."

His entire body might have spasmed or it might have been her imagination. He shows no such lack of self-controlled when he answers her. "Hinata. I do not know how to create the seal."

She smiles. "Oh, my husband. I will show you. In your hands, I know I will be perfectly safe."

* * *

><p><em>Earlier<em>

* * *

><p>Her father's body never comes back. Maybe his ashes are now mixed where they scattered his brother's ashes too, she thinks, except-no. That's not right, is it? Neji had told her. The Cloud does not burn their dead. They dissect their bodies for any secrets not yet ascertained and then leave the bodies exposed to the elements, for animals to eat, and wind and rain and heat to decay. Returning the body to the sky, he'd said. Kumo's village lies above the tree line; there's no wood for burning and the ground too hard to dig, he'd said.<p>

And maybe such a fate would have given Neji comfort when he thought of his father, but it did not comfort her. Who knew what hands had pried open her father's skull and plucked his eyes to claim as their own? Tsunade, anxious to keep the peace has asked her not to push the issue. Ridiculous that she should push aside Hinata's soft voiced concerns trying to curry favor of former allies already shown to have betrayed the Five Shinobi Villages Alliance. A war is unavoidable, but still, she does not hear. So Hinata tries and _makes_ her hear. Hinata never thought that she could have the spine to stand up to someone yelling at her, never thought she would be capable of yelling, of knock-down, out-and-out screaming matching, of fighting _back._ Not after her childhood of raised voices and heavy silences, but she finds she is, if it matters enough. And it matters enough that there are twenty Hyuuga dead, not counting her father, and not a body has been brought back from the field. Not a body even seen on the field, following the aftermath of the Fourth Great Ninja War and a pact that fell to pieces the minute the common enemy was gone. And still, their Hokage does nothing to see the last remains of those who fought and died are honored. She leaves them to these body-snatchers. Hinata must honor an empty urn and she must tell those now looking at her to be their representative to do the same. At any rate, six weeks is too long. Any body left would now long since be rotted through, unless, as Hinata suspects, the bodies have been frozen and preserved in labs while men in white coats try to pry open secrets from Hyuuga skulls.

Still, if the enemy will steal from the dead, so should they. They, at least, will use such things for better ends. So that is why, when, for whatever reasons, Kumo sends back Naruto's body but not her father's, Hinata volunteers to do the autopsy, one last act as a medic-nin before assuming a different role in the city.

Her hand doesn't even tremble when she raises it, and Tsunade looks at her with weary eyes.

"I will look after Naruto-kun." Her voice doesn't stutter. Tsunades waves a hand at her and turns to leave. Behind her, Sakura jerks a little."Shuisu, I-"

"No," The answer is low, but harsh. "I did w-with Nawaki -kun and you- No."

The name is not familiar to Hinata, but it must mean more to the Hokage's apprentice, because Sakura turns to leave, never even catching Hinata's eye. Hinata thinks she will have to find her later, apologize, and grieve with her, let her rant at her if that's what Sakura needs. But for now- her clan's needs must come before her friend's.

After all, Hinata reasons, as she moves to the sinks to wash and put on gloves, nothing will bring Naruto back, but when she strips away his clothes….

Yes, dark lines meet her eye as she pushes up cloth. A seal is revealed beneath. She had never known-even after having seen Naruto nearly every day for five years; after having _known_ him,_been in love_ with him for ten- she had never realized, had never guessed, at what he was. His chakra reserves had been large; it had masked the truth. Only at that final battle had everything fit together. He was a demon-host, a human container- and a carrier of a seal.

She doesn't know what she hopes to find. Seals can never be removed. Sakura's other teammate, Sai, will carry that marking on his tongue for life. Neji will never have a forehead as smooth as hers is now. But what lay scrawled out on Naruto's stomach is not _a_ seal, but _multiple_ seals. _Seals on top of other seals._ The sight is bizarre. Her mind should be numb with shock, should be looking at this small…man, almost just a boy still, this small body that had seemed so big in real life. She should be grieving for her first crush and old friend, instead something inside of her whispers _What If?_ Her brain clicks over from remembering that this is a person with a face, a human face. All she can see are the lines seared onto the skin making shapes she does not understand.

You cannot remove a seal.

But you could add another.

You could _seal_ a seal.

She stares at the skin another moment. An idea begins to take root in her head. What if she could make it come true?

She picks up the scalpel, makes a cut, and begins the autopsy in earnest.

* * *

><p><em>Earlier<em>

* * *

><p>Hinata doesn't see it happen, but she hears it clear enough. Her father's voice, and for once, possibly the only time, it is calling her name. Its an ugly sound, strangled and guttural, as if the speaker couldn't get enough air. Which, he can't, because when she peels herself away from her cousin Neji's back and turns and looks, her father is already collapsed on the ground. She isn't even sure it is him, for a second. There are two men and each looks so like the other. Not until her uncle turns around and she sees the seal, dark and angry, on his forehead does she realize it is her father who's on the ground. It is her father who's dead.<p>

And she's running towards him, no matter that Neji is calling to her to turn back, no matter that the enemy takes this distraction as the moment to try and hamstring him, no matter that her uncle is calling out to her to stay away or he'll kill her too. A man she's never been sure really loved her is dead, and even that doubt doesn't matter anymore because nothing she can do will ever change anything now. Because, regardless of his feelings, she has always loved him. Her father is dead.

Above her, a son puts a knife into a father's belly before an uncle can kill his niece. Blood is in her hair and later she will not know how it got there. The skin of the eyelid is soft, loose almost, as she reaches out and pulls it down over her father's eyes. Behind her, Neji's breath is on her ear. His hand is on her shoulder.

"Get up! Do you want to be killed?"

She doesn't want to be killed, but she doesn't get up. He pulls her up instead. He pulls her into the retreating mass of ninja soldiers, strangers not of Konoha who'd never spoken to her father or had known more than his name, if that, people who were once his enemies. He was fallen, fighting for them. It is crushing in the crowd, and Neji's holding her, guiding her back, his mouth hot against her hair as he says, "You're clan head now. You are. He's gone. T-they both are."

And her hair is wet from his tears and his mouth and her own sweat; from her father's and her family's own blood.

* * *

><p><em>Earlier<em>

* * *

><p>For Hinata, it is perhaps the first time she has realized what it must feel like for outsiders to enter her house. The idea that everyone could have their eyes on you had never before bothered her, possibly because she was sure there was nothing in her for them to see. But now, released from the hospital, seeing them all for the first time since Pein, she feels their eyes on her every second. They don't want her to relapse; don't want her weak heart to be pushed too hard. They want her to relax, to take it easy, to "let us do that for you, Hinata-sama. You shouldn't be out of bed, Hinata-sama. Feel better Hinata-sama."<p>

Everything she has ever done, she has done for her family. And now, the first time she acts, not caring if their eyes are upon her, they sit up and take notice. It'd almost be funny except she hurts too much for it to be funny. The city's in rubble. Naruto still hasn't given back an answer for what she'd told him. No, it's not really funny at all. So she moves about in her most normal routine, so normal and practiced and reassuringly the same that eyes fall away from her one by one. For this reason she says yes when Neji appears in front of her, and asks her to spar with him. It is not _exactly_ normal because Neji has never asked her before now, but she thinks yes would be the normal thing to say, even if she really doesn't want to very much.

So they go.

But they do not fight.

They never even make it the training hall.

They turn a corner and she is slammed into the wall. Neji has his hands on her shoulders, shaking her, and he might be saying something, but all she can concentrate on is the thudding of her head against the wall, not enough to hurt truly, but still it takes her an eternity to bring her hands up to his. Her nails dig in before he stops. When she gets brave enough to lift her gaze up, she wishes she hadn't been that brave. On his face is the naked emotion of fear.

"You were dead! I thought- I ran my lungs out to get to you, and when I get there you're on the ground. Dead."

"I had to-"

" 'Had to' doesn't mean shit, Hinata-sama! My father didn't _have to_ die for your father. For _you._ But he did. We _all _would. And yet here you are, throwing away your life- your life that cost my father his- and I- and I couldn't _do anything_ about it. You weren't even breathing, you selfish, little _cow."_

Her face heats up and her hands are trembling and-

She can feel his breath on her cheek. So close like this now, surely every flaw in her lies exposed. But there is nowhere to go. Somehow she forces her tongue to move.

"T-that's n-not fair, N-neji-nii. I-I am not o-only my c-clan. Ojii-san didn't – not f-for m-me. I-I have t-to do some things for m-me too."

For a second, she thinks he is going to hit her and grits her jaw. The hand becomes a fist, connects with the wall, indescribably loud, so close to her ear.

"Somebody else can't fix it. They can't replace you. They can't know, like you do- So you can't- You are not allowed to. I…" Her cousin's voice is strangling itself in his throat, and his fingers uncurl from the fist by her head, make their way slowly down. First across her shoulder, just the barest brush, then her collar bone, then down across the sternum between her breasts. She stops breathing. He does too. Instead, they both watch as his thumb softly brushes up and down that small length. Something cracks inside of Hinata, opens to this moment, to something new.

"You," he says, eyes not on her face at all. "Will change everything for our clan. Until then, you can't die."

What he is saying is not just opinion, not just hope, but _fact._ Somehow, fact. She shifts, stands taller, and his hand falls away. Their eyes rise and meet.

Hyuuga Hinata cannot save the world or the city or even one man. Pein taught her that. But she can save her clan. She is in such a position to do that. And if she falls once, let it never be said that Hyuuga Hinata will not stand up again, fight again, step again between what pain is coming and something she loves.

Her hand reaches out, touches his face, drops away and finds his hand.

"No," she says. "I will not, until then."


End file.
